DNF at 38%

The cover and the promise of an underwater adventure initially drew me to this book, I liked the idea of this story, but the execution wasn't for me. I would say primarily that this is very YA - it lacked depth and had very basic/conversational writing (which seems fine for a younger age group).

I also didn't love that we're in a fantasy world where very modern life specifics are being thrown around - ex: Miniskirts? Fake IDs? This in addition to the FMC being extremely immature (especially for someone raised by pirates), it took me right out of the story.

I'm sure younger readers would find this book enjoyable.

Thank you to Dreamscape Media for providing this ARC through NetGalley.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for both the ARC and ALC. This has less adult/teen crossover appeal than I was hoping for (firmly rooted in younger YA). The world building here is pretty cool- the culture jump without time travel was a really unique way to relate the fantasy world to the world of readers today. Renee Dorian's narration was entertaining and believable. Recommended for fans of Tricia Levenseller's Daughter of the Pirate King or Erin A. Craig's House of Salt and Sorrows. Also, fans of Hannah Whitten's Nightshade Crown series that don't mind reading younger may want to check this out.

I ended up DNFing this book. Not because it's a bad book but because I am not the target demographic. I went into this knowing that it's for a younger audience but I wanted to read it since I've hard great things. It's a good story but the way it's written is not for my age group so I struggled to get into it. The narrator is great and I would recommend this book to someone reading at a younger YA level.

Super cute YA fantasy with pirates & magic! The little mermaid meets captain hook!

Publisher's summary
Amare Bellamy is not a witch.
Orphaned as a child and raised on a ship by the most dangerous men in the Caribbean, Amare is one thing and one thing alone: a pirate. And pirates hate magic.
After a fateful storm plunges her to the depths of the ocean, Amare wakes to find herself in a strange new world: an underwater kingdom, where magic exists, but is strictly outlawed by the King—a man who claims to be her true father.
As Amare struggles to fit into her new role as Princess of the Sunken City, she finds herself tangled in a web of love between two brothers—one good, one not so good. And as strange powers manifest within her, she must question everything she was raised to believe—especially if she has any hope of stopping the evil brewing at the bottom of the ocean.

Thanks to NetGalley & Dreamscape Media for the ALC of this book!

The Sunken City
By: Emma Noyes
Narrated by: Renee Dorian
Series: The Sunken City, Book 1
Publisher: Dreamscape Media
Length: 10 hrs and 45 mins
Release date: 06-25-24

Story: 3.5⭐ (Rounded up)
Spice: 0 🌶
Narration: 4 ⭐

The narrator did a wonderful job. Her voice was perfect to perform a teenage girl. You can understand her even at quicker speeds.

This is book 1 in the Sunken city Series. It was a good listen. There were parts that were a little immature for me (being a 36 y/o).

I don't particularly like love triangles, but this type is the worst. IMO. It's like Damon vs Stefan...

If you like found family, pirates/"mermaids", YA fantasy, arrange marriage, love triangles, twists/turns, then you will love this!

Thank you Netgalley & Dreamscape Media for the ALC

i really enjoyed the first part of this book, it kept me engaged & i really enjoyed the main character but then in part 2 it felt like the whole book just changed the main character was annoying & i felt she had no depth to her. I didn’t believe in her relationships with either of the brothers. Ultimately i didn’t care at all about any of these characters & i didn’t enjoy this book.

The Sunken City was everything I wanted and more! Pirates, witches, mermaids, mermaid witches, princesses, hot over-protective brothers, enemies to lovers, cliff hanger! I originally heard about this series on TikTok, and am SO happy to have been given the chance to listen to the audiobook. This romantasy is truly a mix of Pirates of the Carribean, The Princess Bride, and The Little Mermaid (1 & 2). I listened to this book nonstop beginning to end because I did NOT want to put it down, I was captivated! Each part was so different from the last, I was so enchanted and enthralled, and I cannot wait to listen to/read the other 2 books in the series. My book club meets tomorrow and I cannot wait to tell them all about it!

Swashbuckling fun underwater adventure for all ages! Solid YA read & clean. Highly recommend! Great for fans of Pirates of the Caribbean & Daughter of the Pirate King. Born & raised on a pirate ship Amare longed for adventure, but she never dreamed she’d end up being the lost princess of the Sunken City destined to fulfill a prophecy. Full of new found friends, magic, pirates above and below the sea & a search for treasure. Very unique world building, fun characters, and plenty of intrigue.

I don’t think <i>The Sunken City</i> knows what kind of book it is nor how patently unbelievable and inconsistent it feels to a reader.

Do you remember how there used to be—and probably still are—all those knock off versions of really good animated films for children? And you’d watch them because you liked the films they were ripping off (and unintentionally parodying at times—but no matter how many you saw, the vast majority of the time you were left feeling disappointed?

Yeah, that’s kind of how I feel about this book. It’s like they took Disney’s Atlantis and The Little Mermaid and made a really poor amalgamation of the two that just leaves you sitting back and thinking…what???

<i>The Sunken City</i> starts off somewhat more mermaid-esque, with our main character being raised by pirates and having this weird encounter with a thief boy in Nassau. By the way, thief boy is so blatantly important it’s painful. Then she starts feeling this stronger and stronger connection to the ocean and next thing we know she’s down in Atlantis/Atlantica’s counterpart and it’s just so stereotypical re: lost princess storylines—complete with an intended love interest for love triangle reasons (this isn’t thief boy)—that I found myself cringing every thirty seconds.

But of course, this can’t be exactly an underwater sea kingdom because that would just be too easy! So let’s add nightclubs for some reason? I dunno, this part was just so strange and out of left field for me that I kind of just sat back and failed to understand what Emma Noyes could have possibly been thinking here—admittedly, I did wonder if this was some sort of story that was written by a teenager, because my goodness, the inconsistencies really scream it for me.

And then in the second half we go back to the actual fantasy elements of the story and now magic is this super important thing and, surprise surprise, the villains aren’t who we were told they were.

I just…why? I feel like I’ve read the equivalent of a 14-year-old’s insert self dream where of course nothing makes sense because it was a dream that they decided to write down and attempt to publish as a coherent book. The book forgets that it’s supposed to be in a fantasy setting and moves back and forth between modern and fantasy which really pulled me out of the story so. many. times.

The main character is literally one of the whiniest and bratty characters I’ve ever had the misfortune to read and she does not ever once get better through the entire course of the novel. The love interests are terrible and very insta-love. Not to mention…brothers? Seriously? WHY? As if I needed another reason to cringe or roll my eyes. And the plot is very…again, all over the place, whilst simultaneously managing to be painstakingly obvious from the get go.

Thanks…I hate it.

So, I dunno…the next time someone falls asleep watching Atlantis and The Little Mermaid together in one night…maybe don’t write it into a book?

Note: I am kind of kidding with that last line since I’m sure there’s a way to write something that works from a dream, but goodness…it needs a lot more coherence than <i>The Sunken City</i> had and much better characters.

I also did not like the narrator at all—it felt like she was truly embodying miss whiny and this made it even more difficult to root for her.

Loved this book! I had seen videos advertising it on tiktok so I was so excited at the chance to listen to it. Let me tell you I was not disappointed. I loved the under the sea setting, and what more could you want than magic and pirates. Such a good ya fantasy! I loved the narrator she dd such an amazing job keeping the reader intrigued throughout. I will definitely be recommending this to others!

Thank you NetGalley for the audio ARC in exchange for an honest review

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
No spice/ YA
5⭐️ narrator

This book was exactly what I want from a YA fantasy, and I loved it so much!

First off, can I just say that the cover is beautiful. It definitely reminded me of The Little Mermaid, but also gave Atlantis vibes. It was the perfect cover for this book and would immediately draw me in to read it if I saw it on a shelf.

I don’t like love triangles in NA books, but I think they are a staple in YA for a reason. This book is a coming of age story, and in a lot of ways the love triangle is an important part of that. The boy you think you want vs the one you didn’t know you needed and all that. Honestly if she chooses the wrong one in the later books I will riot.

The world building is really fun and well done. I like that the world above the sea is what you expect of pirates in the 16-1700s, but the world under the sea is more like a magical version of current times. I’m really excited to learn more about the world (and meet the telepathic sharks!)

There’s a lot of betrayal and questions throughout the book, and I have so many theories about who’s actually good and who’s not. I’m so excited to read more and learn more and see if I’m right.

The narrator was perfect. She did such a good job as a teenage girl, a teenage boy, and adult men and women. I will definitely be looking up more book she narrates.

Overall this book is exactly what a YA fantasy adventure should be. I can’t wait to finish the trilogy and read more books from the author.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with my first advanced audio copy.

The Sunken City has been on my tbr list for over a year, maybe two now. I remember seeing videos of the author advertising the book, my favorite had to be of the one where the author and her fiancé dressed up kind of like pirates and flighting with swords by the water. So I was excited to start this book.

Initially I was thrown off by the narrator sounding so young until I realized that the main character Amare, is only 17.

I can definitely see the influence vampire diaries had on this book. It was an interesting book to listen to. A girl discovering she was the long lost daughter of the Sunken City and having to fit into the new role as princess with her father’s right hand man by her side, Finn. She finds herself in a middle of a love triangle between Finn and his brother Lukas.

As interesting as it was to listen to the book, I felt like there was a lot going on, lol even I was struggling to keep up with Amare and I feel like due to all the stuff going on, I just couldn’t fully feel the chemistry between Amare and the brothers. I was also shocked when one of them confessed their love to Amare. BUT one of them did grow on me at the end.

But overall, I did enjoy the book and I look forward to the rest of the trilogy.

I had been seeing this book all over TikTok so I jumped at the chance to listen to the audio. It did not disappoint! Pirates/princesses/magic?! Count me in! Definitely will be continuing this series.

I wanted to love this book. I thought the premise was interesting and different from what most people are doing with similar books. It just kind of fell a little flat for me. It definitely had its good moments, and I do like the general storyline, but I felt that it took a very long time to get from one plot point to the next. I also don't feel like I was able to really connect with the characters, unfortunately. I did enjoy their backstories, but only a couple were well developed. Maybe that comes in the later books of this series?

The narrator of this one would not have been my personal choice for this book. She seems to be a fantastic narrator, but I felt that her voice sounded too young to be a 18/19 year old. I think she would be better suited for a younger child (like in the flashbacks).

Overall, I would rate this 3.5 stars. There is definitely some standout moments like when she is locked in the room with her hands on the floor (IYKYK). While that was such a small part of the story, I thought it was really cool! I might try the next book and see how it compares. Now that the backstory is out of the way, maybe book 2 can really take off. Fingers crossed!

🧚🏻A HUGE thanks goes out to NetGalley, Dreamscape Media, and author Emma Noyes for providing me with a free copy of this audiobook in exchange for my honest review!

This was a fun YA adventure. I really liked that there was a lot of attention to detail and that the world building was down well. The writing style made it super easy to fall into this world. The character were fun and lovable and it was nice to see the development in Amare. I thought that the magic system was unique and fascinating. This is a very promising start to this trilogy and I can't wait to see where it goes.

The narrator did a fantastic job of bringing this to life and I highly recommend for anyone who likes their fantasy in audio format.

The Sunken City (The Sunken City #1)
Emma Noyes
Amare Bellamy was orphaned as a baby; she was raised on Man on the Moon-Shadow pirate ship. Uncle Omar carried her tied to his back when she was a babe. He was very protective of her. As she grew she dressed as a boy, however as she matured she could no longer pass as a boy. One crew member attempted to assault her; she stabbed him through the hand and ran. When Omar discovered what had happened the punishment took the man’s life. It was a statement to the other crew members. She loved the sea and the voices she heard that led her to discover a treasure chest. Curiosity got the better of her and she opened the chest. Her world would tilt and shift when she came near the treasure. A storm drew her back into the deep ocean. When she regained consciousness, she was in an unfamiliar magical world. The king has forbidden the use of magic. He declared she was his long-lost daughter, the heir to the throne, the next queen of the Sunken City. Amare had to learn to be a princess as well as a mermaid. All she wanted was to be a pirate, but that life was gone.
What a great story! Kudos to author Emma Noyes. Amare is a adorable, strong, intelligent main character. Being raised by pirates gave her many advantages in the new world; she must adjust too. On the outside she was a tough cookie, able to take care of herself, on the inside she was kind and sweet. Her old life and her new life left her conflicted. She was curious and wanted to know more about the new kingdom, but she missed her old life as a pirate. I would be remiss if I did not comment on the cover. I was drawn to the cover. The focus audience of this tale is upper middle school through high school.

Thank you NetGalley for providing a review copy.

I loved this unique perspective to the under the sea fantasy. It was such a fun story to escape to, and I can’t wait to finish Amare’s story and see what she does with her newfound knowledge. So fun!!!!

I'm really torn on how I feel about this book. I wanted to really love it. Pirates and forbidden magic are right up my alley, but The Sunken City fell flat for me. I was not a fan of the love triangle at all. The romance subplot felt underdeveloped and the characters in general didn't have much dimension to them. The story has so much potential though, so I will consider reading the sequel if I have time for it. It's not really something I'll be actively searching out for though.

Thank you Netgalley for providing a digital ARC.

I think if I would have read this, I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much as i did listening to it. I love fantasy and this is my first time reading a book about pirates and underwater kingdoms. I feel like the world building was great and easy to follow along.

I had a lot of fun with this audio book. I think the narrator did a good job with the voices and making them different but not annoying throughout.. The narrator pulled me right into the story from the beginning and I speed right through it! I liked the pacing of the book. I loved the friendship in the book, the interactions between the girls were great. The romance was cute and I can't wait to see who her end game is. Loved the story and can't wait to dive into book 2.

Thanks to Netgalley for the audiobook!